And the Journey Continues...

Mitch's reflections, thus far....

We have been very busy since arriving in Honduras. The first adventure was navigating our way from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. We chose the $6.00 cheapy bus ride and it was great. It took a little over 3 hours and was just fine. I have no idea why anyone would need to take the $25.00 ride... but maybe we got lucky. Not a chicken, goat, or any other livestock aboard! That night we connected with three girls from Tierra Santa (they are spending part of the week with us), met the founder of HHK (David Ashby) and had dinner with him.
Yesterday we had the chance to help out with an HHK fundraiser. We spent time with the kids holding signs and asking for donations from passersby on a very busy street. It was fun, but the kids ended up working at this from 8:00am-4:00pm. We did not. Instead, we took a break from this to go over to the hogar (home) to play with the younger kids who were too young to be on the busy streets of La Ceiba. We played soccer on a very tiny "field" on the side of the yard, read with kids, played hide and seek and a very clever spin on Rock-Paper Scissors the kids taught u.. it goes something like this.... Mickey Mouse, Micky Mouse, Mickey arriba (up) Mickey abajo (down) Mickey aqui (here) Mickey alla (there)... then shoot your rock paper or scissors. I'll teach you the rest when I see you but I will say that it involves holding your opponent's ear! :-)
Later, David took us up to the jungle school for a tour. I don't know what I had in my mind, but it wasn't what I saw. This place is incredible. We (Global Connect) have already sent money to help with this which has helped to start construction on another classroom. But as it is, they have now run out of money and the project is sitting waiting for further funds.

Today we came out to a hotel on the beach and spent a few hours on a boating and snorkeling expedition. This was fun and a very new experience for the Tierra Santa girls. After snorkeling a bit we went to a tiny island that holds a Garifuna (sp) village. The Garifuna are descendents of African slaves in the area and live mostly by fishing. They live a very simple life on their own tiny island... yet they somehow were able to gather around a small TV to watch the world cup finals. Here on this island we ate a great meal of fresh fish (head, tail, the whole nine yards!), beans and rice, and fried plantains. It was great and quite reasonable... about $3 or $4! We rested the rest of the day and just finished up with dinner.
We will go back to the jungle school tomorrow while the kids are in school to see it all happening. Some of these kids walk 2 or more hours each day, one way, to get to the school... some even have to cross the river to make it. Amazing! We are also hoping to go further up the mountain and deeper into the jungle to see where some of these kids are coming from and where HHK has further outreach projects in these little jungle villages.
Honduras is a beautiful place. We are nestled between the northern coast and the mountains. the water in the ocean is beautiful and warm and the mountains are green and dense with vegetation and the tops are almost always shrouded by the clouds. This creates what is known as a cloud forest which is, for all intensive purposes, a rain forest. The kids of course are awesome. We had fun hanging out and playing silly games and just lovin' on em! Totally possible even when I don't speak Spanish.

Well, this pretty much covers most of what we have been up to so far. I'd like to include more and tell you more about the girls from Tierra Santa, but I think I should hold that for another time.

Peace, grace y Buenos Noches... Hasta la Pronto-

Mitch

honduras summer 2010 1

Our first couple of days in Honduras - July 2010.
Click the photo below to view the picture album.

First Days Visiting Helping Honduras Kids

It’s Sunday morning when I’m typing this. So far we haven’t had any Internet access and really not time to wander to an Internet café. So, no blogging for now. We’ll be going to a hotel on the coast later this morning that will have access.

Things have gone great to this point. Friday was our big travel day. We had two 2 ½ hour flights followed by a 4 hour bus ride from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. It all went off without a hitch. We had been told by several people not to take one of the more inexpensive buses from San Pedro. Not because they are dangerous, just because they are slow and hot and uncomfortable. We had a fantastic time. The bus was slow and it didn’t have air conditioning. But we cranked the windows open and enjoyed every little stop in which locals would jump on the bus and try to sell you fruit or tortillas or tamales. It was a fun cultural experience that would have been much different had we taken an expensive, air conditioned express bus. We paid 4 bucks and were better off for the experience.

In San Pedro we wandered a bit but finally were able to meet up with Kenia, Margarita and Senia. These are three girls that used to live at Hogar Tierra Santa. I have sponsored Kenia in the past and really wanted to see her while I was here. I was equally happy when she wanted to have Margarita and Senia join her. They took a bus up from another city in central Honduras. After meeting them we were greeted by David Ashby who drove to pick us up at the bus station. David is the president of Helping Honduras Kids (HHK), the organization we came to visit in La Ceiba. David then took us out for dinner where we were able to talk about our week and begin to understand the workings of HHK. The best treat of all was when David left to pick up the HHK children from church and then brought them back to the restaurant to meet us. The kids greeted us with smiles and open arms, immediately wanting to interact and tell us their names. After a long day of travel it was good to be reminded why we had taken this journey in the first place.

After dinner, David dropped most of our group off at the volunteer house in La Ceiba where we would be staying. He then took me back to the children’s home to pick up some water. I didn’t stay long, but it was great to see the home right away and have some of the kids show me around, showing off their bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, etc… They clearly were excited to have a visitor. Of course I had lots of mixed emotions, having made a relationship with another home, Tierra Santa. I miss those kids with whom we all opened our hearts to on three previous trips. It’s not easy to just transfer that energy and emotion to a whole new group of kids. It will take a bit of time, and probably another trip or two, for me to be able to fully embrace this new group of children. I miss the Tierra Santa children, but just seeing the smiles and feeling the hugs of the HHK children makes me know that building new relationships with these kids will not be difficult in the end.